updated 05:30 am EST, Fri February 25, 2011

Shows large dedicated Thunderbolt chip

The iFixit team has wasted no time in tearing down Apple's fresh Macbook Pro 15-inch Unibody Early 2011 model just released yesterday. The point of most interest surrounded the discovery of a very large controller IC for the new Thunderbolt 10Gbps I/O. The team plans on handing the part over to Chipworks for an x-ray to see what lies inside what it found to be the fourth largest chip after CPU, GPU and logic-board controller.

On the repairability front, the new Macbook Pro scored a "respectable" 7 out of 10 as it is relatively easy to access all the major components in the device. The only component that was problematic to repair or replace was the LCD, as removing the glass panel could easily result in shattering it.

Other components of note included the RAM, which has been upgraded to the same PC3-10600 used in the current line of iMacs. The wireless card now has four antennas, up from three previously so users should expect greater range and a more stable wireless connection. The Wi-Fi chip is supplied by a Broadcom BCM4331.

The built-battery is the same 77.5 Watt-hour battery as in the previous generation, but run time has been downgraded by Apple from 8-9 hours to 7 hours. This is likely to reflect Apple's new real-world battery life benchmarking more than any marked increase in the power consumption of the second-generation Core i7 quad-core processor, which is now standard fitment.

seriously...

I sure hope that isn't the actual official name of this laptop. People mock the Dell E5200 as a boring name, but at least you know can remember it and say it easy enough. And you don't have to remember "OK, I bought my laptop when? Right, beginning of 2011. Wait, was that before or after the new model was released? How do I tell? Oh, I know, I just check on-line for someone to say what features are on what model."

And when buying a second hand....

...Dell E5200 in a few years time and you want to find out the exact ram compatibility or latest supported OS you will just be able to use the app PCtracker which has exact configuration, launch dates, product codes and more of every PC and PC peripheral ever produced

What's that, I felt sure that a PC equivalent to MacTracker would exist, how else do you explain the high resale value of PCs